Lee Kitson Homes
HBAGGR Green Built Demonstration Home
Kentwood, Michigan
Site visits by appointment only (Contact Rain Gardens of West Michigan)
Many homebuilders remove all the trees and shrubs on a homesite before they begin construction. This builder preserved as much of the the existing vegetation on the property as possible, providing the new home with instant amenities. Because the surrounding trees were saved, every window looks out on trees, wildflowers and wildlife. Lawn is minimized. The new homeowner will have little to maintain and much to enjoy, with no waiting for landscaping to mature. Mother nature is the primary landscaper here.
In addition, the home features rain gardens and native plants in the landscape. Lee Kitson Builder, Inc. constructed this Green Built demonstration home (Home and Building Association of Greater Grand Rapids--HBAGGR) in Kentwood near Woodland and Centerpointe Malls during the spring of 2004. Rain Gardens of West Michigan partnered with Knapp Valley Landscaping, RiverMaid Design, and JF New on this project to design, engineer, and create rain gardens on the site. Lee Kitson wanted the landscaping to be as green as the home.
The Burton Forest Rain Gardens
The rain gardens were constructed during April and May of 2004, and were planted May 17. The site presented many difficulties, so this is 
The home was constructed on a steep slope which presented many stormwater problems. Traditional methods of handling stormwater on such a site would direct the water into the woods, with stone dams to break the force of the flow. Lee Kitson, with Knapp Valley Landscaping, chose to filter the stormwater through a series of rain gardens, with overflow and discharge to the wooded area. The landscape plan has minimal turf, and runoff from some of much of the lawn area flows into the rain gardens.
Three rain gardens were designed, one at the front and two at the back. The builders were concerned about the volumes of water that would enter the back rain gardens during a 25 year storm, so some of the roof stormwater bypasses the rain gardens through buried tiles. All the gardens performed well during rain events in May of 2004, even before planting. We expect them to do an even better job after the plantings mature.
The Front Rain Garden
Getting the stormwater into the rain garden is always a design challenge, and the landscaper did an inspired job. Knapp Valley designed and constructed an attractive "zen-like" stone stream channel on the steep slope to direct the water flowing from the driveway into the front rain garden. Landscape fabric lines the channel and gravel and boulders decorate the streambed, slowing the force of water flowing down the slope. Rain also enters the front rain garden as sheet flow from the turfed slope along the street.
The front rain garden has a gravel reservoir in the bed with overflow tiles for the filtered stormwater. This is topped with landscape fabric, and the pond area is filled with absorbant biofiltration mix (sand and compost) of varying depths. The underlying site soils are primarily clay. There is an overflow drain at the far end, and a fieldstone-weep retaining wall to hold the garden in place on the slope. A gravel-lined swale leads the filtered water to the second rain garden at the back.
Native plants for the front gardens were donated by JF New. Knapp Valley Landscaping provided the traditional landscape plants and some large, beautiful natives.
The gardens were planted by volunteers from WMEAC, MSU Master Gardeners, and A Place to Grow. A complete plant list and the garden layouts will be provided here in the near future.
The Back Rain Gardens
The gardens in the back are also fieldstone-weep style rain gardens, with water entering in sheet flow at the surface and filtering down through the soil medium to a fieldstone retaining wall or to tiles. Some of the roof runoff is tiled to run under the rain garden in order to reduce the water weight load in the garden. We were not able to construct these gardens to the size needed to handle the full volume of a 25-year storm event, and had to compromise.
The back rain gardens provide a nice view from the deck of the house. They are planted with traditional cultivars and with some native species. The back gardens are very shady.